Web Monitoring Skill (Open Scouts)

Monitor websites for changes and get email alerts. Track competitor pricing, news mentions, product updates, or any web content that matters to your business.

When to Use This Skill

• "Watch this website for changes"
• "Alert me when competitor updates pricing"
• "Monitor news for mentions of X"
• "Track when this page changes"
• Competitor monitoring and intelligence
• Brand mention tracking
• Price monitoring
• News and industry alerts
• Keywords: "monitor", "watch", "track", "alert", "notify", "changes", "updates", "competitor", "news"

What It Does

• Scheduled checks - Monitor URLs on a schedule
• Change detection - Detect when content changes
• Email alerts - Get notified immediately
• Search monitoring - Track search results for keywords
• Custom filters - Only alert on specific changes

Setup

Install

cd ~/.openclaw/workspace/tools/firecrawl/open-scouts
npm install
cp .env.example .env

Configure .env

FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=your-key
SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
SMTP_USER=your-email
SMTP_PASS=your-app-password
ALERT_EMAIL=where-to-send@email.com

Run

npm run dev  # Development
npm run start  # Production

Usage Examples

Monitor Competitor Pricing

// Add a scout for competitor pricing page
{
  "name": "Competitor Pricing",
  "url": "https://competitor.com/pricing",
  "schedule": "0 9 * * *",  // Daily at 9am
  "alert_on": "any_change",
  "email": "team@company.com"
}

Track News Mentions

{
  "name": "Brand Mentions",
  "type": "search",
  "query": "YourCompany news",
  "schedule": "0 */4 * * *",  // Every 4 hours
  "alert_on": "new_results"
}

Monitor Product Page

{
  "name": "Competitor Product",
  "url": "https://competitor.com/product",
  "schedule": "0 8 * * 1",  // Every Monday 8am
  "alert_on": "content_change",
  "ignore": ["footer", "ads"]
}

Alternative: Quick Change Detection

If Open Scouts isn't set up, use firecrawl-observer:

cd ~/.openclaw/workspace/tools/firecrawl/firecrawl-observer
npm install
npm run check -- --url https://example.com

Or manual approach with cron:

# Scrape and save
firecrawl scrape https://example.com -o page-$(date +%Y%m%d).md

# Compare with previous version
diff page-yesterday.md page-today.md

For Field Agents

Use this to help clients:

1. Track competitors - Know when they change pricing/features
2. Monitor reviews - Alert on new reviews/mentions
3. Watch regulations - Track government/industry pages
4. Price tracking - Monitor supplier/market prices

Cron Integration

Add monitoring jobs via OpenClaw cron:

{
  "name": "Daily Competitor Check",
  "schedule": { "kind": "cron", "expr": "0 9 * * *" },
  "payload": {
    "kind": "systemEvent",
    "text": "Check competitor.com/pricing for changes and summarize any differences"
  }
}

Source

Tool: ~/.openclaw/workspace/tools/firecrawl/open-scouts/ Repo: https://github.com/firecrawl/open-scouts